Story list (best first).

Martin Livings' "An Evil Twin" (B); download; non-genre: A political story: why is the petty criminal punished when the President of a powerful country can order the killing of thousands by military & no one thinks he is a criminal?

Craig Miles' "Interrogation" (B); download; non-genre: Very well written, not implausible, & politically relevant - but rather dark. Law makers & enforcers make a mockery of fairness & decency in a world afraid of terrorists & willing to give enormous powers to government.

David Such's "Dockland" (B); download; science fiction, humor: An expert at culling alien vermin that often escape at an interstellar dockyard in human space has an unconventional solution to get rid of the alien "Death Slime".

Susan Partridge's "The Oracle" (C); download; science fiction: Nostaligic story from a future dystopia of times "when water fell out of the sky — a time when Earth had many trees... before the seas' oxygen- producing plankton were destroyed by nuclear-waste dumping in the Northern hemisphere". In this dystopia, humans no longer look like us - as a result of long crossing of human genome with animals.

Shaun A Saunders' "Flash" (C); download; non-genre: An argument about why leading a life of poverty writing flash fiction is better than being prosperous! Living in India, I've heard the argument for so long, it sounds tiring now.

J P Overton's "Lumps" (C); download; non-genre: A man terribly sick with a fast-spreading strange sickness doesn't want to go to a doctor! Leaves house when his wife discovers he is so sick & faints - afraid that she will insist he go see a doctor immediately!

Stephen L Thompson's "Of Course" (C); download; science fiction: Apparently a well written story, but I cannot figure out the punchline. Aliens in a spaceship are in serious trouble. There is an unfamiliar quadrupedal creature in a corner of the room. Aliens don't quite recall what they did that has so disturbed them, & where this creature has come from.

Paul Sheringham's "Venom" (C); download; fantasy: I didn't really get this story. A victim & her torturer. An attempt at her escape is foiled. She eventually surprises him with a vicious attack, but there is hint this attempt is also futile.